OPINION: It's a new year and there's a new Taylor Swift song - but we're still dealing with the same old nonsense about how much her music sucks.
And yet, as always, her music is ranking at the top of the charts. The woman formerly known as 'America's Sweetheart' is back with a harder edge: 'Look What You Made Me Do' is an instant, certified banger and everyone who hates it is wrong.
For starters, it's not a diss track directed at Kim and Kanye.
With that out of the way, let's look at how the song works - and sometimes, how it doesn't.
The intro
Remember the end of 'Out Of The Woods', when Swift approaches a second figure on the beach that looks identical to her? Her next music video starts off with that figure zombie-fied, an almost-identical dress and all. It's a good sign of what we're in for.
We start off mystical, like a fairy-tale - just like her original songs, with some unrequited love affair. Cute, but dull. It earned her the nickname as 'America's Sweetheart', but she lost that title pretty abruptly in 2013.
Then it gets hard. All the jokes have set in. She's had enough of your crap and she doesn't care anymore.
The verse
The 'tilted stage' doesn't refer to Kanye's, but her own. Where she's been built up, hailed as a hero - circa 1989-era - then abruptly, everything is pulled from under her.
The haters aren't gonna hate anymore. We don't have any fairy-tales. Dark Taylor is risen.
Pre-chorus
It's hard to deny that the pre-chorus is a bop. It's catchy, it's building up. The second pre-chorus is arguably even better.
"I've got a list of names / and yours is in red underlined": A monster has been created. A vengeful Santa, if you will.
The chorus
Alright, even as a certified Swiftie, I can't defend this. In all honesty, it is a let-down.
Yes, the sample of 'I'm Too Sexy' does bring an angry beat I am absolutely including in my running playlist from now on. But it's flat. We've spent the song building up to something incredible and scream-worthy, but there's nothing.
Sure, there's a deeper meaning in there about how she's given up on defending herself and all that, however I just really wanted an energetic chorus - maybe with the flat, existing one in the bridge instead.
What did we make her do? 'The old Taylor is dead'. The girl who sang cute love songs, blushed and dropped her jaw in amazement whenever she won an award, she's gone now.
Bridge
"I don't trust nobody / and nobody trusts me": Come on, this is just sad. This is the girl who sang with rainbows and unicorns and has a guitar covered in glittery rhinestones because they look pretty.
...
The old Taylor is dead. We're not shaking off the haters anymore. They've made her smarter and harder. She's beaten them at their own game.
The music video makes it worse. There's a line of Swifts through the ages. With the sparkly guitar, with the dorky 'Junior Jewels' shirt, with the 'Shake It Off' ballet dancer.
And they're listing all of the comments that Swift has had to deal with in the past 10-odd years she's been in the limelight.
Yes, she's probably just playing a character the whole time and now this grittier reboot is what the audience wants.
Either way, the girl who would chant "Never forget the essence of your sparkle" before going on stage is gone - but the new Taylor already has a hit under her belt, despite what the haters claim.
Breanna Barraclough is a digital producer for Newshub.
